Hickman, Rachel: One Silver Summer.

Hickman, Rachel

One Silver Summer

Old Barn Books, 2017, pp288, 6.99 [pounds sterling] 978 1 910646 29 8

This novel has all the ingredients to ensure its appeal to a wide audience of teenage readers, especially perhaps girls. A clutch of attractive characters is introduced in the opening chapters. A story of young love, a happy outcome is clearly suggested from the outset, but that in no way detracts from the narrative. The story is told alternately from the vantage point of Alex in the process of absconding from his boarding school and of Saskia, Sass for short, who, having recently lost her mother has come to live with her artist uncle in Cornwall. In addition, this is a story for lovers of horses and horse-riding. The 'Silver' of the title relates to a 'silver horse' which Sass happens to see in a sunlit meadow and which captures her heart and her imagination.

These characters would seem to have little in common: Alex is the son of an upper class English family while Sass has grown up in Brooklyn, New York, but they are united by the fact that each has a problem, a sorrow. Sass is grieving the loss of her mother who died in an accident and Alex is facing the loss of the family estate which it appears will need to be sold following his parents' divorce.

A charming story, well written and with much else to recommend it.